Mitt: Obama 'weak point' is economy

Former Massachusetts GOP Gov. Mitt Romney said Monday night that President Barack Obama’s “weak point” in getting re-elected is the economy.

“The key issue that America faces and has faced during his entire presidency has been getting jobs for Americans,” said Romney, one of the leading Republicans contenders for 2012. “Whoever’s running against Barack Obama, the weak point is he is that he is not focused on the economy,” Romney told Fox News' Bill O'Reilly Monday night.

Story Continued Below

“Instead of focusing on that from day one, and meeting with top business leaders, and small business leaders, and economists and saying what do we do to actually create jobs, he used all of his time and political capital to campaign on Capitol Hill and around the country for his health care takeover,” the former governor added. “He took a liberal agenda as opposed to working for the American people.”

The White House and its Democratic allies frequently point to the $787 billion stimulus package as having stemmed a recession that started before they took office – and say it saved and created jobs in the process. Additionally, Democratic lawmakers passed a $17.6 billion bill in March designed to boost jobs creation.

But Romney said the Democrats economic policy prescriptions are wrong, arguing that he would have more aggressively cut taxes.

“The truth of the matter is you can create jobs by encouraging businesses through tax policy,” Romney said. “A broad based tax rate reduction would increase the growth of our economy and help build our economy and help fill the federal coffers.”

“The right thing to do immediately is to put us to work by reducing the burdens that businesses face in hiring people and in buying equipment,” he added. “That's the right course he should have taken. He borrowed all that money $787 billion. And not one new net job in the private sector. The only sector that grew was government. That's the one sector that should have shrunk. So we're going to reduce our burden down the road.”